Inside the New York Yankees clubhouse with MLB.com beat writer Bryan Hoch.

Looking back on the 2010 season

What a year that was for the Yankees, right? Alex Rodriguez’s first full year back from right hip surgery was a success, as he hit 41 home runs and drove in 121 runs … Mark Teixeira added 37 bombs and 125 RBIs from the other side of the infield … CC Sabathia became a 20-game winner for the first time in his career … Derek Jeter showed no signs of slowing, punctuating his contract year with a .319 average and 21 stolen bases … yawn, 41 more saves for Mariano Rivera …

Oh, right. Where is all this coming from? I was just fooling around with the MLB.com 2010 Fantasy Baseball preview, which is trying to take all the guesswork out of actually playing the season.

These numbers are all part of their projections for the year ahead, though some things don’t look quite right now that Spring Training has almost completely played out — for example, if Phil Hughes finishes the year with only 75 innings pitched, something went wrong with their fifth starter. At the time, they believed Joba Chamberlain was going to win that job outright.

But no matter; in the pitching department, the Yankees seem to be just fine with 66 victories out of their top four starting pitchers, not to mention 200-plus bullpen-saving innings out of Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez.

The gurus seem to think Curtis Granderson (.272 BA, 31 HR, 84 RBIs, .847 OPS) will adjust well to playing in the Bronx, and Jorge Posada (.272 BA, 18 HR, 76 RBIs, .848 OPS) should be productive again. Robinson Cano (.308 BA, 22 HR, 94 RBIs, .851 OPS) seems like a good fit in the No. 5 spot, and if Brett Gardner really does hit .266 with a .706 OPS and 31 steals,
the Yankees should be just fine with that from a No. 9
hitter.

It’s worth a look just to see the current players plastered on 1987 Topps cards, which looks really cool. Anyway, while it’s definitely fun to try and forecast how things are going to play out, unfortunately John Sterling is correct when he (repeatedly) intones, “You can’t predict baseball.”

CC Sabathia became the Yankees’ first 20-game winner since Mike Mussina in 2008? he won 20 games for the first time at the age of 39, with a 6–2 win over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, becoming the oldest first-time 20 game winner in MLB history.

Meta

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.